Imus is Us

I was a Top 40 disc jockey when I was in college, and for a year afterward. One of my co-workers subscribed to a radio industry audio “magazine” (you’d figure it would be audio in radio!) that contained various articles and interviews with people in the business, but it also included in each issue what we called “air checks.” Air checks are recordings of radio broadcasts, except they edit out the music and commercials so you only hear the announcer. For the rest of the world, that sounds like the opposite of what anyone would want to listen to, but for disc jockeys, the opportunity to listen to other disc jockeys, especially in large and lucrative major markets, was a treat.

That was how I first heard of Don Imus. In the mid-70’s, “Imus in the Morning” on WNBC, was the most-listened-to radio program in New York City. I still remember listening to his air checks and not believing the kinds of things he got away with saying; racial slurs and sexual innuendo that we would have been fired for saying in the Tampa Bay area. Yet, he was the number one morning show in New York. That was thirty years ago, and the things Don Imus got away with saying then were tame in comparison to the things we hear and see in the media today.

The shameful and offensive things Imus said last week about the Rutgers women’s basketball team have brought a firestorm of reaction and controversy from every segment of society. Some have called for (and have now gotten) Imus’ job. Others have defended, not what he said, but his right to say it, because of our constitutional right to freedom of speech.

It seems to me we are all missing the point. The only reason Don Imus has been around since I first heard him in the mid-1970’s is because people listen to him. “Shock jocks” like Don Imus and Howard Stern are only in the positions they are in, making the money they are making, because we, the American public, like to listen to the things they say. We love to be shocked and titillated by their off-color and insulting comments.

In other words, Don Imus is us. The irony is that we are all up in arms about something he said, when we’ve been encouraging him to come right up to the line, and even stick his toe across it, for the last thirty years. We, as an American public, have been egging him on, and then, when he sticks his entire foot across the line, we get all-fired self-righteous and can’t believe he said it. We shake our heads and say “Shame on him.” But, the truth is, he has only been reflecting the tastes and desires of the American public for three decades, so, if it’s shame on him, it’s shame on us.

The Bible often speaks of the evil that can come from the tongue. There are many passages warning of the widespread damage such a small organ can cause. But this isn’t really about the tongue of Don Imus, or anyone else, because, if we didn’t listen to them, they wouldn’t have jobs. This is about the trash we allow to pollute our minds and our spirits. Paul tells us in First Corinthians 6 that, even though we are free to say or do many things, that doesn’t mean those things are beneficial or positive. They don’t form us into the people we’ve been created and called to be. And then, in Philippians 4:8, Paul says, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Shame on us for being so surprised and offended by what Don Imus said last week. We’ve been encouraging him to be that way for over thirty years, so it was just a matter of time before he went too far. If more of us would follow Paul’s advice and focus our minds on those things which build up and form us into better people, the Imuses of the world would fade away.